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Where did life begin for you?
I grew up in the small town of Scone in NSW in the wine and horse region of the Hunter Valley, population 5000. I then moved to Melbourne to study at the Victorian College of the Arts and graduated with a Bachelor of Music Performance.

When did you start singing?
As a kid I would sing with my brothers and sisters and then when I was 17 I started singing lessons. It was about that time my teacher asked me if I had thought about singing opera so I went off to see my first opera, and that was it. I was hooked. It was an OZ Opera production and the people who performed that day are people I now perform with, so in many ways, I’ve come full circle.

Katie Williams has a special link to Royal South Street and an unexpected one. When asked to design our 125 Logo, Royal South Street was unaware of Katie’s long family history and involvement with the competitions which spans three generations.

“My time with RSSS was very memorable for me. I played clarinet in the Symphonic Band for Eltham High School back in the 1990s and we competed at RSSS every year.

What does a bloke do when he marries a ballet teacher and has three daughters, all of whom inevitably become involved in ballet too? He can’t beat ‘em so he joins ‘em – and has a lot of fun doing so. It helps, if the bloke also enjoys amateur theatrics. My involvement meant, on various occasions, being requested by Carole Oliver, directress of the esteemed ‘Carole Oliver Ballet School’, to be ‘the male’ in both end of year concerts and RSSS Eisteddfods.

At 8:15am on a morning punctuated by rain and sun, the Novice Solo Classical 6 years under 8 contestants gather from around the state, all with their hopes and dreams. The highly accredited adjudicator, no novice among these novices, has danced in London and judged from Wollongong to Newcastle to Sydney and now Ballarat.

Two debates will be held throughout the year with topics covering the best of 125 years of Royal South Street debating topics, some quirky and curious and others as relevant and unresolvable as they were a century ago.

Did You Know?

Let the Competitions Begin....

In June, 1891 Ballarat saw the event of the year, the first South Street Society Competitions. 260 entrants competed for a moderate prize of 60 guineas (sixty pounds, 60 shillings). Literary, Elocution and Musical items were listed. The Essay competition on “The Most Urgent Social Reforms” was won by Robert Baird, and essays on “The Nobility of Labor: and “Recreation” were both won by Andrew Baird. Fittingly, Baird and McGregor are this year's 125 Celebration Great Debate sponsors. In the Impromptu Speech, Dugald McLachan was successful with the title “Deakin on Federation.” The Competitions ran for 10 days, and was hailed as an overwhelming success.